The launch of Dr Hopps' book, "Morrissey: The Pageant of His Bleeding Heart", will take place in Manchester.

The event will be held on Saturday at Blackwell's University bookshop in the city's Oxford Road.

Dr Hopps believes Morrissey's work is comparable not only to great writers but also to comedy greats such as Frankie Howerd and George Formby.

The book explores all the major subjects in the singer's writing - such as love, melancholy, monstrosity and alienation.

If you're starting to make grand claims, calling George Formby a comedy great is going to start to undermine you from the get-go. It's like suggesting that William Hague is every bit as witty as James Corden.

And the rather than one of the greatest? Jarvis Cocker might have a thing to say about that...